


you belong among the wild flowers, you belong in a boat out at sea

by kitnkabootle



Category: Harlots (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-10
Updated: 2019-08-10
Packaged: 2020-08-14 11:07:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20191267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitnkabootle/pseuds/kitnkabootle
Summary: Lydia Quigley knows that Kate will leave as they all have before. She should be accustom to it by now.





	you belong among the wild flowers, you belong in a boat out at sea

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoy this and want to read more please comment so that I can gauge if anyone cares to see the continuation of it.
> 
> Also please note the story does contain references to abuse, but they are not explicit.

Lydia Quigley never wanted children. Or perhaps there was a time or two, when she had thought of it. 

The time when she was seven years old and Miss May had promised to give her the doll on the very highest shelf in the sitting room, if she would be extra special with one of her afternoon visitors. She’d done it of course, just as her father had shown her, and all the while she thought of that doll, staring down at her with a painted clay face, sweet and soft, and lips red as cherry. But Miss May never did give her the doll and it sat for years on that shelf, out of reach, motherless — a promise not kept.

When she was nearly ten years old, one of Miss May’s visitors had hurt her particularly badly. She remembers seeing the blue and gold plumes of bruises wade to the top of her skin and recalls how Miss May had wrapped her chest and stomach in dressings to stop the bleeding. She’d asked Miss May then if she could have the doll, even to see it for just a moment to make her feel better but once again the powdered woman had denied her. 

“Little Lydia, if you play with that doll you will break her and then she will be of no use to anyone, just as you are now,” she’d rasped sourly as she pinned the dressing in place. 

She was right of course. She could not attend visitors in her condition. Miss May didn’t like it when she couldn’t earn her keep in the house. However, despite her resentment, Miss May was kind enough to stop her father at her bed chamber door when he’d tried to enter in the middle of the night for one of his special visits. When he had left, in poor spirits and unsatisfied, Miss May had sat beside the bed and patted her hand, “You must rest and regain your strength for my Little Lydia doll must be mended before she can be toyed with again.”

Lydia had smiled at her, had looked down at the bejeweled hand upon her own before it was sharply removed. Still, it was one of the kindest gestures anyone had ever paid her.

When she was twelve her stomach had swollen, shortly after she’d received her first courses. Her father had called her fat and spoiled and it was only after her stomach had protruded beyond the trappings of her stays, that Miss May had told her it was “an affliction.” 

Lydia remembers being terrified, fearing she would die from her illness like one of Miss May’s other girls who had bled to death from between her legs. 

She wondered if at some point her stomach would buckle and tear apart like that of the hanging carcasses on the pig seller’s cart. Miss May fed her tonics but they did nothing but give her fever and pains in her middle. 

One day the pains became excruciatingly bad, so much so that she could hardly catch her breath and it had twisted downwards low in her belly. She asked Miss May to call upon the doctor but she was told to be quiet and to be a proper lady. Proper ladies didn’t carry on so.

Finally she remembers bearing down against the pain, biting into the back of her hand to keep silent, when she felt it violently between her legs. She’d cried as she looked up at Miss May above her, told her she didn’t want to die. As luck would have it, she didn’t. But her child did. 

A “Woman’s curse” she’d called it.

Miss May hadn’t let her hold the baby but she’d shown Lydia its lovely face, sweet and soft — just like the doll from the top shelf. Then she’d taken the bundle away and they’d never spoken of it again.

Lydia has always made it a point to teach the girls in her house about childbirth. In addition to literature and art, she’s schooled them in practical ways to make sure they did not have to discover every nuance of womanhood the way she had. Of course she never let her girls keep their children, in fact she often dismissed the girls who’d become pregnant at first glance, never daring to take the chance that she would once again look into the sweet soft face of a little bundle, and have it fall away. 

Then Margaret came into her life, and she had finally warmed to the idea of a daughter. She was a precocious child, but sharp and quick witted. Lydia had dressed her finely, spent extra care on her appearance and sold her much later than she herself had been sold. She’d even given Margaret a cloth doll of her very own, and one to Nancy too, though the latter girl had proved herself a poor investment.

When Margaret became with child, Lydia hadn’t sent her away. In fact, she’d sat with her during her confinement and taken care of her mostly by herself, with Nancy scuttling about around them. She’d seen to it that Margaret had received only the finest cuts of beef and pork to satiate her, to gain her strength, and had pampered her with wine and sweets. 

When it came her time, she’d held Margaret’s hand and watched as Charlotte came into the world, another bundle, sweet and soft. 

“May I hold her?” She asked the nursemaid and she had placed the bundle into her trembling hands. She marveled at the weight of her, the smallness of everything. For a moment it even felt as though she held her own daughter, that this child could have come from her own womb. That this child with clear eyes peering up at her could have been one of her making.

But Margaret didn’t like Lydia being close with Charlotte. When she felt Lydia had overstepped her mark, she fled in the night without so much as a goodbye, taking baby Charlotte, sweet and soft, away from her, just as she feared she would. She remembers staring down in the empty bassinet, weeping for the child she once had and lost. For bundles sweet and soft, and for the doll that still sat on that shelf out of reach at Miss May’s house, yellowing and spoiling with age. 

With the tears still wet at her cheeks, she’d taken cull after cull to her own chambers. Her other girls had thought she’d acted out of kindness in giving them the rest, but kindness had not driven her.

With the last of the men spent, she had laid upon her bed, thighs sore and coated in lust, with Margaret’s abandoned cloth doll asleep on her stomach and she dared to hope. 

Months later, when she’d almost died in childbirth, she had finally held the bundle of her own. It was not the little girl she’d dreamed about, but a son, ruddy and ill-tempered. He’d fed from her body, and stuck to her like a shadow and all she could think was how much he resembled her father. How he was clumsy and oafish and spoiled, just as any son would be. 

She’d tried again for a little girl but only boys had followed, two in fact, but she kept neither and had them deposited on the steps of the church without ever again giving them thought. 

When Kate came into her life she imagined for a moment that she would feel the closeness she felt with the younger woman the same as she would have a daughter. But it wasn’t so for everything with Kate felt different than it had with others. She did not love her as she loved a child. She loved as she would an angel sent to save her.

When she looked into Kate’s beautiful face, sweet and soft, she saw only love reflected back. She felt it deeply, as she stroked Kate’s hair and cradled the younger woman against her. When she promised Kate that she would never have to do anything she didn’t want to do. She held no strings above the girl, made no elaborate plot to make her do her bidding. 

In the stillness of her bedchamber at night she would even allow herself to hope again. To hope that Kate would not leave her. She wasn’t sure if she could bare the loss of another, let alone that of her angel. 

One day Kate had kissed her. 

Lydia had come from satisfying another of Miss May’s bloodsucking culls, feeling worn and exhausted, to the sitting room. Kate was there waiting for her with a basin of fresh water. She’d dipped her aching hands into the warm rose-scented water and began to wash them when Kate appeared very near to her side. 

“No allow me to help you,” she smiled, extending her hands to clasp Lydia’s wrists, softly, beneath the water. 

Lydia felt herself shiver involuntarily at the touch.

“You’re a sweet girl,” she said as Kate’s slender fingers entwined with hers and then cupped handfuls of water along her forearms as she massaged Lydia’s skin, clearing away the remnants of her cull. 

Kate took a pressed linen cloth and immersed it in the water. Then she wrung it out between her hands and carefully touched it to Lydia’s neck and cheek. 

“Careful not to clear away the paint.”

Lydia couldn’t bring herself to show her bared skin to Kate, not after their time in Bedlam when Kate had looked upon her, without wig nor paint nor dignity, and called her a beast. 

Kate smiled, “But we are retiring, it is late. Surely you don’t sleep with that on your skin.”

Lydia’s smile faded and she nodded, “No.”

“You help me so much, allow me to return your kindness,” Kate said, eyes open and honest and Lydia felt tightness in her chest. Felt her eyes prickle unfairly.

Kate took her hand and led her towards her bed chamber, the very same one she’d occupied as a little girl, and helped her to sit on the dressing table stool. 

“Miss May said you were her favorite girl,” Kate said kindly, standing behind Lydia as she untied the lace of her corset, “She said you were very successful in your day.”

Lydia’s eyes saddened as she looked at her reflection, tired and worn, with smudges of white still clinging to her skin, concealing the redness below.

“Yes,” she answered.

“I bet that’s because you are so pretty,” Kate said and Lydia felt the hairs at her neck tingling beneath her wig. 

It was the sweetness in Kate’s voice, or perhaps the sheer open innocence of her words that made the coolness cloud Lydia’s eyes, made her reply mirthless and honest.

“It was because I was small, and resembled a child for longer than I was.”

Kate’s smile faltered and fell away, her hands slowing to a stop as she looked into the mirror that reflected Lydia’s stare.

“I, oh, I didn’t—“

“No,” Lydia answered, still holding her gaze. Still she forced a smile, and looked down at her hands, concealing the trembling by grasping the silver handed hairbrush.

“Please allow me to do that.”

“No,” Lydia said again, pulling her loosened stays around her frail figure, “that’s enough for tonight.”

“Oh Lydia I didn’t mean to upset you—“

“You haven’t, I am tired and I just want to be left alone,” she answered, not daring to look at Kate as she said it, for fear Kate would see weakness.

“Yes of course,” Kate said softly behind her, the younger girl retreating quietly towards the door.

Lydia stood from her dressing table and removed the corset, her shift thin and cold beneath, covering the scars and bruises that had ebbed along her life. Behind her she heard the snick of the door closing and only then did she allow herself a moment to clear away the tears that had gathered in her eyes. 

She’d lost everyone she cared about, and those that she didn’t care for at all, hung around like restless spirits. Her mother’s presence still watching her from the shadows, weak and tired, and her father’s still poisoning her bed. 

Sniffling quietly, she dabbed the back of her hand at her cheek to collect the last of the bitter tears, salt-staining her skin. It was then that she felt the sudden press of hands at her waist and it made her jump, instinct kicking in as quickly as it had ever done. 

When she spun around, eyes fear-widened and heart racing, she found herself looking up into Kate’s large soft doe-like eyes.

Lydia found that words then escaped her, perhaps for one of the very few times in her life. Kate said nothing either, but lifted one hand to place it at Lydia’s cheek, full and warm, her fingertips stroking at the border of the powdered wig. 

She dipped her chin and guided Lydia’s mouth to hers, her long dark lashes canvassing her eyes as Lydia stole one last glance before their lips met.

The kiss was not passionate, nor was it particularly chaste. Instead it felt peculiar, foreign. It made Lydia’s stomach clench, and set her fingers to gathering up the material of her shift just to keep them still. 

When they moved apart, Lydia was overwhelmed with an exaggerated desire to hurt Kate. She wanted desperately to expel her into the street, or to snap at her, wound her with grievous unpleasantries. She wanted to lie to her, to make her feel as though everything had been an elaborate game to ruin her. She wanted Kate to swear herself as an enemy, to spend years and years with the younger woman viciously trying to destroy her entire kingdom. 

“Please,” Lydia said, her voice weak, low, and pleading. “Please won’t you go?”

And Kate did. 


End file.
